Everyone who knows me knows that I hate flying. It's loud, uncomfortable, confining and if things go wrong there's no way out. (I'm an advocate of parachutes under seat, not inflatable vests.)
But the real reason I hate flying these days is the environmental impact.
a) Apparently you're better off driving to your destination, alone, even if it's thousands of miles away, than being on a full plane. That's how bad the fuel consumption is.
b) Planes dump their emissions in the most delicate part of the stratosphere and there's nothing to help mitigate the damage. For all of the pollution cars create, we have our plant life down here to help soften the blow.
c) They are noisy, booming things and no matter where we go, we seem to be able to hear one or see one, even the far hills of Scotland.
d) The amount of packaging they use per passenger is amazing. When my husband recently flew on a short haul flight to Amsterdam, he asked the air steward if they recycled any of the cans, cups etc and the air steward dismissed his question by saying 'that would be far too expensive.'
So they are massive air polluters, noise polluters, they create masses of plastic rubbish, are fuel hungry and the actual airlines don't recycle their waste or seem to care to.
And how does the UK government respond? Subsidies of course. They prop them up with heaps of money to make it cheaper for consumers to perpetuate the cycle. The subsidies work out to something like £500 per person in the UK that go to the airline industry. I don't understand how this is possible.
I have made an official request to visit any of London's recycling centres for an in-depth look at how they really work. Questions like a) who sorts out the 'mixed bags' full of various types of recyclables and b) how are they actually recycled? Most people I speak to are cynical that anything happens to the mixed recycling bags and I myself don't understand how our typical mixed recycling bag, which will usually contain up to 6 types of plastic, aluminum, glass and various types of paper (including little bitty pieces) can be efficiently sorted unless there is a huge team rifling through it all on conveyor belts. I want to know - is it all a London borough con? Where is the evidence of how it is all actually recycled? I can never find any reports on it, apart from % of waste that is sent to recycling sites, not how much is actually recycled or how it is recycled. One of our friends accidentally put his recycling bag out a day early on his street in Notting Hil...
Comments
Am enjoying the blog - nice to find another Londoner who feels as guilty about wrecking the planet as me!
Thought you might be interested to know about the concept of Freecycle (http://www.freecycle.org/). A great way of keeping stuff out of landfill and not throwing away perfectly usable things. I'm presently shifting half my stuff on it before I move out of London!
Cheers!
Steve
Let us know how it works out for you. Might be worthy of a review.
Green Lady